Hawzah News Agency - (Istanbul - Turkey) - Turkey responded angrily to Greece’s critical comments on its re-conversion of Istanbul’s Chora (Kariye) museum into a mosque.

"Chora mosque, like Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque and other cultural assets on our lands, belongs to Turkey and it is our property," Anadolu news agency cited Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy as saying on Friday.

Neither Aksoy nor Anadolu made it clear exactly which statement they were referring to.

On Friday, Greek Reporter cited Greece’s Foreign Ministry as saying that Friday’s Turkish presidential decree ordering the re-conversion of the museum, formerly a church, into a mosque was “another provocation against religious people everywhere in the world and of the international community that respects the monuments of the human civilisation”.

The move comes shortly after a similar decision to re-convert Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia into a mosque from a museum.

Located in Istanbul’s Fatih district, the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora was constructed as part of a monastery complex in the fourth century during the Byzantine era.

It was converted into a mosque around 50 years after the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453. It was changed into a museum by Turkey’s Council of Ministers in 1945.

Friday’s decree was implementing a November ruling by the Council of State - Turkey’s highest administrative court - that the 1945 decision to change its status to a museum was unlawful.

The decision to change the status of the Chora raises questions about what will happen to its extensive Byzantine mosaics and frescoes. Like the Hagia Sophia, the Chora is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Aksoy said Turkey meticulously protects its cultural assets.

"We would like to underline that a change of status made in a world heritage site does not contradict the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage," said Aksoy.

Aksoy criticised Greece for failing to respect the rights and cultural heritage of its Turkish minority.

"Greece's efforts to create false agendas in the region with its historical complexes are doomed to failure,” he said.

"We invite Greece once again to make peace with its history and to provide the necessary facilities for Muslims to worship in their own country," Aksoy added.